


Knowledge and Profit

by o0Anapher0o



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Curiosity, Gen, Rom's mad genius engineering skills, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 14:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30056895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o0Anapher0o/pseuds/o0Anapher0o
Summary: Rom had fixed the replicator but warned Quark off of using that one particular button. Unfortunately he forgot to mention why. It was driving Quark insane.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 27
Collections: Don't Press That Button First Line Challenge





	Knowledge and Profit

“Whatever you do, don’t press that button,” Rom said with an emphatic nodd, brushed his hands off on his pants and rushed off, the Nagus knew where to.

“What if someone wants a Vulcan coffee?” Quark yelled after him, more for the principle of things than because he expected an answer. To be fair Vulcan coffee wasn’t a popular order even among Vulcans, so as long as the replicator worked fine otherwise it shouldn’t cause him any loss in profit until Rom could get whatever replacement part he still needed. Which he had promised to do as quickly as possible. Now, knowing Rom that could mean anything from one hour up to three days, Quark thought, but it would probably be fine.

He needed to instruct the rest of the staff not to press the button either unless he wanted… exactly what had Rom said would happen if someone pressed that button? He couldn’t remember. A tiny voice in the back of his head stated he only needed to press the button to find out. He shook his head. It was enough that they had spend half the morning wiping up the mishaps from the broken replicator. Replicator malfunctions had the nasty habit of smelling disgusting and this one had come with a high pitched whistling noise to boot. Rom was an idiot, but he wasn’t half bad with repairs, so he probably had a reason if he said not to press that button. But knowing why would be helpful.

Three hours later Rom had not come back. Business was going decently. No one had complained about the smell in over two hours, Leeta had managed to get the Telarite with a suspicious winning streak on Dabo table one to stop gambling and spend his winnings at the bar, Garak and Doctor Bashir had met for lunch and flirted even more outrageously than usually, and Quarks finger almost perpetually itched to find out what would happen if he pressed that button.

As expected no one had ordered a Vulcan coffee and the replicator worked otherwise fine, but every time Quark stood in front of it his eyes wandered to that blasted button and he thought, what if I just… How bad can it possibly be?

He distracted himself by mixing another black hole for Ensign Peterson. His wife would not be pleased when he came home, but that wasn’t Quark’s problem. Only got to show that hoomans allowed their females far to many liberties. No Ferengi female would ever presume to lecture her husband on how he was allowed to spend his evenings after a long day of hard work. Quark tried not to think about the many nightly arguments he had overheard between his own parents as a boy. Well, Moogie had never been a very good wife in that regard. No wonder Rom was such a failure, really. Where was he anyway? How hard could it be to find a spare part to fix a replicator? How long was Quark supposed to live with ‘don’t press that button’?

Another two hours later, there had been a barfight between the, at that point very drunk, Telarite and a Klingon from the freighter that had docked this morning. Odo, _who had been a barstool all this time_ , had arrested all parties involved, as well as the Denobulan who had made Quark a very good offer for some Inselian crystals of somewhat nebulous pedigree. Nurse Parlar had soundly beaten Crewman Numan at Darts, which in turn had made Quark lose two strips of latinum to one of his waiters. Who knew Bajorans could play darts. Morn had talked for nearly an hour about his latest business venture, which was doomed to fail in Quarks humble opinion, but had only ordered one drink in all that time. And Rom had still not come back.

At this point Quark was slowly losing his mind. Not five seconds passed when he didn’t wonder what would happen if he pressed that damned button. He had already spent a good five minutes staring at it while Morn droned on. There was probably nothing to exciting about the button. Likely it would result in more smelly slug, or maybe nothing would happen at all, or maybe… Arrrgh. How was Quark supposed to live with an uncertainty like this?

He tore himself away and reminded himself that it wasn’t worth it. This was not one of the cases were the 74th Rule of Acquisition applied. In this case knowledge did definitely not equal profit. But it was annoying that was what it was. “Where is Rom? What could possibly take this long?” Quark muttered under his breath and very pointedly didn’t look at the replicator.

Forty-seven minutes later Quark and Rom were sitting in Odo’s office. Kira was glaring at them and Odo wore his most impressive stern face.

“Two people were live threateningly injured and seventy suffered minor scrapes. You are lucky no one was killed,” Kira spit.

“In addition thirty ships suffered severe damage and there were several hull breaches in the docking ring. I’d venture to say you'll be much sought after for compensation.” the shape shifter added grimly.

“How was I supposed to know he had wired the replicator so it would release all the docking clamps?” Quark defended himself. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“I told you not to press that button.” Rom said.


End file.
